TWO oil paintings by Greenock’s finest twentieth century artist have sold for more than £1 million pounds at auction.

One of the works by William Scott, Berlin Blues 2, was purchased for £730,000 at the Sotheby’s sale in London, making it the second

most valuable Scott work sold at auction.

Before the auction,the picture had been expected to go for between £350,000-£450,000.

At the same auction,Scott’s painting, Dark Earth Scheme, fetched £430,000 against a pre-sale estimates of between £200,000 and £300,000.

Scott was born at 24 Tobago Street in Greenock in February 1913.

He was the third of 11 children and eldest son of Greenock signwriter and house decorator William Scott senior and his wife,Agnes (nee Murray).

Scott spent the first eleven years of his life in Greenock before he and his family moved to Enniskillen in Northern Ireland, the country his father came from.

He moved to England and between 1931 and 1935 he studied at the Royal Academy Schools in London, sharing rooms with three young men from Swansea including Dylan Thomas, who went on to become one of Wales’s greatest poets.

In February 2015, Scott’s son Robert, director of the William Scott Foundation, visited Greenock to donate one of his father’s paintings, Breton Landscape,to the McLean Museum and Art Gallery.

William Scott’s importance as an artist was officially confirmed and recognised in 1984 when he was elected to the prestigious Royal Academy in London,which entitled him to place the letters ‘RA’ after his name.

There have been only six hundred Royal Academicians since the Royal Academy was founded in 1768 and they include Turner, Constable, Gainsborough

and Reynolds.

Scott was 76 when he died on December 28 in 1989.

Nearly 30 years after his death, his paintings continue to command high prices when they go under the hammer.

His oil painting, Bowl,Eggs and Lemons, sold for £1,071,650 at Christie's in London in 2008.